Demonica

By Ben Higginbotham

Demonica Valios just wants to be normal. Normal doesn't come easy when you're a half-human, half-demon with a 3-foot long tail, though.
But things are about to get weird, even for Demonica. Big things are coming, controlled by a single old man, rolling dice endlessly in a small tin shack. He has the power to command Hell's armies, and soon, Demonica will have to fight for her life and her soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Higginbotham
• Release date: Jul 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452330952

Ben Higginbotham

Ben Higginbotham lives in Salt Lake City, UT, and has lived there his whole life, except for a few months in Kent, Washington around the same time the Green River Killer was in operation. Although the Demonica series has currently captured his attention, Ben is also hard at work on two other novels; a more traditional horror novel called NIGHTLIFE and a sci-fi mystery called BUREAU OF IDEAS. Feel free to send comments or suggestions to the author at [e-mail].

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Demonica

By Ben Higginbotham

Published by Ben Higginbotham at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Ben Higginbotham

Discover other titles by Ben Higginbotham at Smashwords.com:

Demonica 2: Bloodwars

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Acknowledgments:

There are several people without whose help this book would never have been written. First of all, to my parents, for always believing that I would be a writer from the first time I scribbled something resembling a story onto paper. To Alesha Nave, for believing in me for only a slightly shorter time, and only because she hadn't met me yet. Alesha, thanks for listening to me all those nights when we'd work out the problems I was having finishing this when you would have been entirely justified in telling me to shut the hell up, you were trying to sleep. To Chris Jacoby, Darcy Page, Aaron Jensen, Keltin Barney, Zach Sampinos, John Clukey, Liz Shattler, Liz Evaschuk, and anyone else who ever stopped by writer's group long enough to listen to a few pages and offer their honest opinion, even if I didn't like hearing it. Make that especially if I didn't like hearing it. And to anyone who is reading this right now, because without you, I'm just talking to myself, and a good story is always much better when you have a willing ear to listen to the tale.

You'll have to bear with me for a bit. I just lost my best friend recently, and I'm still don't quite believe that she's gone. We've been friends for so long that I'm not quite sure what I'll do without her.

For now, I'm doing my best to keep her alive in my memories. I can still hear her smart-ass remarks, always coming just when I thought we were dead for sure. Somehow, we'd always come out of it on top, and I find myself wondering if it wasn't her sense of humor that kept us alive half the time.

I've been cleaning today, boxing up some of her stuff to give to Goodwill, setting aside the things that I can't bear to give away. Setting aside the things that she treasured the most, the things that still seem to resonate with some of her energy.

I started with the attic, figuring that if I could get through that rattletrap collection of memories without losing it, then I could handle anything.

And then I found these.

She's been writing everything down, everything that ever happened to the two of us. I didn't even know it, but they're all here, every single adventure that we had together. I've flipped through the pages for a bit, her familiar handwriting covering hundreds of lined notebook pages. I don't know if she was going to publish these notes or what, but I can't just let them sit. If she took the time to write all this down, then I need to try and get them out there. So I've been using her notes, and I'm going to try my best to tell it the way she would have told it, if she were here. I might be a poor substitute, but since she's not here, I'll try my best. This is for you, babe.

***

Tuesday Afternoon:

I stood in line at the bank, my tail itching like crazy under the layers of duct tape I used to strap it to my leg.

I'm not here to make a deposit, or withdrawal, or even to open a new account. I'm just here, on Steve's orders, waiting for three o'clock. I looked at my watch again, and the second hand ticked so slowly that I wondered if maybe it was broken.

See, this is the hardest part of what I do, the waiting. I don't know how he does it, but Steve will give me a rough time and place and tell me to be there. Sure enough, when I arrive at the appointed place and time, my assistance is needed. But right now, this place is dead; as calm and serene as a painting by Norman Rockwell. Another Day, Another Dollar, something like that.

I felt myself tensing up, my nerves jangling. I don't know why I do it, but I always get really tense right before an assignment. When I get tense I tend to sit down and sharpen the spikes on the wristband of my watch, but that tends to get me a few odd looks from passerby. In my condition, I try to minimize the number of people giving me odd looks. I settled for discreetly chewing my nails.

At two minutes to three, I reached the end of the line without realizing it. I just stood there for a moment, still chewing at my pinkie fingernail, having worked my way through all the fingers on my right hand and getting ready to start on the left, when I heard someone behind me clear their throat. It sounded so fussy that even before I turned around, I knew exactly what I was going to see. Sure enough, as soon as I turned around I came face to face with a scrawny, eighty-seven pound granny with electric blue hair.

So, I'll be honest with you, I never really have understood the whole blue-haired granny bit. I mean, really, does it naturally turn blue once you hit eighty, or is it just a really bad dye job? And if it's a dye job, that leads to another question; namely, Just who the fuck do they think they're fooling?

I mumbled something about waiting for a friend and stepped out of the queue. Over in the corner, one of the security guards sat up a little straighter and started to give me the old hairy eyeball. As cute as I look in it, I doubted it was the skirt I was wearing. I pretended not to notice him, and stood as casually as I could, also pretending that my tail wasn't driving me crazy and I didn't need to scratch it. As satisfying as it would be to scratch it even for a second, Steve raised me to be a good little Catholic girl, and good little Catholic girls simply do not pick at their ass in public.

Both my watch and the clock in the lobby of the bank struck three, and right on cue, the doors opened wide to admit a big, burly biker strutting like the villain entering the saloon in a spaghetti Western.

Steve taught me to recognize one of my own kind long ago, as both a defensive and offensive technique. If I can spot one before he spots me, then it's to my advantage; in that, a) my enemy no longer has the element of surprise, and b) I may be able to stop him before he is able to do any damage.

Let me explain. Steve says that all demons have at least one thing wrong with their human form, kind of like those pictures that say Find six things wrong with this scene. See, Steve's theory is that humans are the pinnacles of God's creation, and that the only way that demons can feel comfortable inside such a perfect vessel is to give it at least that one flaw. He also thinks that the weaker the demon is, the more flaws they need to bolster the body with.

Myself, I think that you could replace the word weaker in that last sentence with the word dumber and be closer to the truth.

I took a moment to look over the Neanderthal standing by the doors. He was taking the place in like he was busy trying to decide which ass to kick first.

He looked like he had used an old, rusty knife to shave this morning, and gave up after the third cut. His hair was a long, mousy brown shot through with streaks of silver. Across his chest he had slung a bandoleer, and in each holster of the bandoleer was a throwing knife, totaling maybe twenty altogether.

Most damning of all, though was the tattoo on his right shoulder. Glaring out from just underneath his shirt sleeve was a cross-eyed, wild haired skull with a headband. Below this was the inscription, MUTHER DIDN'T LUVE ME.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner.

I started walking over to him, my hand trying to surreptitiously work one of the daggers out of its holster on my legs. It's hard to do, though, and I got the feeling that the guard got one hell of a show. Maybe not, though. He was busy walking over to the Neanderthal as well, one hand on the butt of his gun. It looked like the Neanderthal was setting off alarm bells for the guard too.

The biker saw me coming, and his face twisted into a lascivious grin, probably as a prelude to something charmingly Neanderthalic, such as Hey baby, do those legs go all the way up? or Ever been with a real man before? Normally, I shoot these advances down in much the same way every woman does. You know, with something really coy and ladylike, something like, Fuck off, asshole. Today, though, I was in no mood for subtlety.

I actually watched the smile melt from the biker's face, like ice cream left on the dashboard of a new car. He looked down at the dagger that was poking into his belly with almost, but not quite enough force to break skin. The guard, who was still a few feet away, either caught sight of my dagger, or saw something else that he didn't like, and he broke into a run, shouting at the two of us.

And that's precisely when all hell broke loose.

Okay, so I'm a big enough person to admit when I'm wrong. So I'll admit it. I was wrong about the biker. But really, can you blame me?

I mean, I was surprised as hell when the business end of a demon's tail punched a ragged hole in the top of the biker's skull. The guard was surprised too, since he'd just gotten close enough to be spattered with blood and gobbets of gray matter when the Neanderthal went down. I was surprised, but only because I couldn't think who else could possibly be a demon. The guard and I stood for a moment, blinking blood out of our eyes, when we heard a loud roar behind us.

As soon as I locked eyes with the demon (who, by the way, still had traces of electric blue hair clinging to her scalp), all became clear. The flowery summer dress that the old woman had been wearing was still clinging to the demon in bits and pieces, but the demon's body had grown far too large and muscular for the flimsy fabric. She was probably about eight feet tall, with long, curling horns like a ram's, and a forked tongue that flitted in and out of a mouth that belched fire every so often. The tail was about four feet long, sinuous, and ended in a very sharp point that resembled a spade.

It kinda made me feel good that it was such an ugly demon lurking underneath the sweet little old lady exterior. I mean, even on my worst day, I could probably win a lot more beauty contests than dear old Agnes over there.

The guard didn't seem to share my opinion. I was impressed though. Even though it was most likely his first encounter with a huge, slobbering hell-beast, he did manage to pull his gun free of his holster and yell Freeze! before the demon got him. Well, no, that's not really true. It sounded more like Free--, followed by a scream, and then that was followed by a wet gurgling sound. But, hey, he gets an A for effort. At least he did that much before the tail separated his upper and lower halves.

By now, the interior of the bank was sheer pandemonium, and the demon was reveling in it. A few people were trying to push past it, and the demon swatted them away (and in half) with its tail. For a moment, she looked like a mad goalie, making stick save after stick save.

I threw one of the daggers at the wall next to it, where it landed with a neat little thock! The monster whirled around to face me, its eyes blazing with pure pissed-off energy as it looked to see who dared to attack it.

Hey, ugly! I shouted. Why don't you pick on something your own species? (Yes, I know. Good God, it's a terrible line, something that you would expect to see someone yell in a bad late-night action/porno movie, but hey; you try coming up with a really good zinger under those circumstances.)

The bitch roared at me, and started stomping over to me like she thought that was a grand idea. I pulled the other dagger out of its holster and threw it at the demon. This time, I didn't miss. It stuck into her high up on the right side of her chest, maybe hitting a lung or even the heart, assuming that she had either of those organs. Instead of felling the beast with a single stroke, however, all I seemed to accomplish was to piss it off even further.

Underneath the tape, I could feel my tail squirming, literally itching to get in on the action. But I didn't want to set it loose. Not just yet.

I scanned the room, looking for something else to throw. The Neanderthal was still lying on the ground a few feet away, so I did a neat little flip over his corpse and relieved him of his bandoleer while still in mid-flip (and no, I don't know how I did it, I just did). As soon as I landed, I started emptying the bandoleer into the demon as fast as I could.

Twenty throwing knives later, your friend and mine was still coming, looking like a pissed-off pincushion, but not noticeably worse for wear. Shit, I said aloud. Well, I thought, that didn't work, what else is around? I saw the guard (well, the guard's upper half) lying a few feet away, his pistol still tightly clenched in his right hand. I considered it for about two seconds, and then dismissed it. This thing probably ate bullets like candy.

A few feet away, I could see a large gravel ashtray, and rushed over to pick it up. I'll tell you one thing: those fuckers are heavier than they look. So, with no small amount of unladylike grunting and heaving, I finally managed to pick it up and toss it in the general direction of the demon.

Now, it was already trailing sand and ash when I threw it, but when Agnes tried to bat the ashtray away with its tail... Let me put it this way. Have you ever seen an explosion at a crematorium?

The demon roared again, staggering around now, trying to rub all the sand and ashes out of its eyes. I took advantage of the break to try and plan my next move.

After weighing all the available options, I did the only thing I could think of. Picture this. You know that really sensitive skin, right up near the groin? Try ripping a pound of duct tape off of that area as fast as you can, without screaming. Sometimes it's just no fun to be me.

So, long story short, after one hissed-between-clenched-teeth exhalation of the word Motherfucker, and one brief mental monologue about the idiocy involved in flinging every last knife in my possession at Granny over there, my tail was out, and it was pissed. Once it was out, I noticed a set of barricade posts nearby, and grabbed one in each hand, with another post in my tail.

Thinking back on it, most of the fights I've had between the ages of thirteen and present day have never lasted more than ten seconds. This one lasted exactly six.

Seconds one and two consisted of me running at the demon with the barricade posts whirling madly, making me look like a B-17 bomber coming in for a run.

At three, she worked the ashes out of her eyes enough to see me running at her, and batted the posts out of my hands.

Four consisted of me jumping up onto the demon's back, while my tail swatted at her hands with the remaining post to cover my movements.

I used second five to get a good grip on her upper and lower jaws and started to pull.

Six ended with a loud snap!

After that, I sat and caught my breath as the walls of the bank faded into the familiar grey slate I always saw whenever I successfully completed a training session.

Okay, so, now that I have a moment to think, I should probably explain a few things to you. First of all, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Demonica Valios, which is pronounced Dee-Monica Val-ee-osh, with the o-s pronounced like the o-c in ocean. The reason I stress this is because most telemarketers like to pronounce it Dee-Moe-Knee-Ka Valley-Oss, and that pisses me all over the place. And in case my little narrative didn't make it abundantly clear, I just so happen to have a tail.

It's a funny thing about my tail. I love it, and at the same time I absolutely hate the damn thing. The reasons I love it are numerous, but mostly because a) it's prehensile, which makes it handy during a fight, as well as when the TV remote is just out of reach, and b) it's got a point not unlike the one on Granny-the-recently-deceased-demon's tail, which is sharp and strong enough to punch through the passenger side door of a mid-size sedan (the sedan belonged to an ex-boyfriend, in case you're wondering).

I hate my tail because it adds an extra twenty minutes to my morning routine. And before you ask how it could possibly add that much time, try this fun little experiment on your own time. Take about three feet of garden hose, have a small child wiggle it as much as possible, and then try to duct tape it to your leg as quickly as you can. And when you're done, try to wind up with a neat enough package that it's not immediately obvious that you have three feet of garden hose strapped to your leg. For bonus points, try the above experiment while wearing a skirt or shorts. Trust me, doing all that in twenty minutes is an art form.

So, as to where the tail comes from, that's story's a little longer, and it comes mostly secondhand via Steve.

Oh, right. Steve. Steve is the closest thing I have to a father, aside from my biological father, whom I've never met. You see, about twenty-six years ago, Steve was a doctor, working in a particular hospital in downtown New Orleans one night when a woman was brought in. She was covered in blood, and after some testing, it was soon determined that she had been raped. It took a little longer than usual to determine this, as they had to sedate the woman, who was screaming about her attacker. Apparently, he hadn't been a man, but some combination of man, cat, toad, and spider.

Can you really blame them for sedating her?

Anyway, after she had been properly treated, she still insisted that her attacker had been Mr. KittyToadSpiderMan, so, she was given a psych evaluation. Aside from that one niggling little delusion about her rapist, she seemed relatively coherent, but not enough so that the staff felt comfortable releasing her on her own recognizance. So, after much debate and hoping that someone would come in to pick up this mystery woman, the hospital staff took it upon themselves to book her into the local Psycho ward as Jane Doe.

After three months, a new wrinkle in the plan came about. The woman began to show the first signs of pregnancy. This was my mother.

After the hospital had conducted an investigation ensuring that the pregnancy had not been caused by improper relations between her and a member of the staff, the hospital had to assume the father was none other than the aforementioned KittyToadSpiderMan. After another skull session, it was decided to try and help the woman have the baby. With any luck, they said, Jane Doe might just snap out of her delusion once the baby was delivered and she saw it to be completely devoid of fangs, tail and horns.

You can already see it coming, can't you?

The next four months were particularly hectic for both Jane Doe and assorted members of the staff. In addition to trying to provide prenatal care for her, they also stopped no less than seven attempts at self-abortion, with a variety of objects that included pencils, keys, and anything else she could pilfer from guards or visitors.

Then, in the eighth month, she gave up on the abortions, as though she was resigned to the fact that she was having yours truly by then.

The ninth month went by without incident.

As did the tenth.

By the eleventh month, everyone was starting to worry about my mother. Even if they had figured the date of conception wrong, the simple fact remained that the baby should have dropped by now. The month went by in a blur of attempts by house doctors, specialists, even the janitor at one point, all trying to induce labor. But the baby refused to budge.

Until the twelfth month, one year to the day when Jane Doe had been brought in, kicking and screaming.

Three guesses what the date just happened to be that day, and the first two don't count.

October thirty-first. Halloween night.

By then, I think most of the staff were half convinced that the baby would never come, and that my mother had worked herself into a frenzied state of perpetual hysterical pregnancy. Granted, there wasn’t exactly a precedent for such a case, but there is a first time for everything. Anyway, I think that’s why most of them just sat and watched it all happen.

To be fair, it was all over so quickly that I don’t think anything would have been different if they’d had every obstetrician in the fifty states lined up waiting with forceps and catchers’ mitts.

Steve says that everyone remembered the events a little differently, but the upshot of it was this. At precisely eleven-seventeen P.M., my mother’s water broke. A nurse who happened to be in the room at the time saw that there was blood in the amniotic fluid, and rushed to get help.

She returned with four other members of the staff, including Steve, at eleven-twenty. Just in time to see my grand entrance into this world.

The first thing that appeared was my tail. It came shooting out of my mother and flailed around wildly for a moment, before pointing at each of them, like it was looking at them, marking them all for future reference.

Then it retracted, and, point upward, slid